Becoming A Golf Instructor: How To Be A Successful Golf Coach?

Getting a mentor is a shortcut to success, they say. But the road to being a true golf coach is challenging and exhilarating. It makes you fall in love with the game and lose yourself in its nuances.

​Becoming a golf instructor involves practising the game, learning its mechanics elaborately and finding ways to inspire your pupils. It’s an art as much as it’s a science. As you start dwelling into the swing analysis, you stumble upon these little secrets. You start enjoying the game both as a player and as a coach. You start exploring the game like a mere golfer never would.

In this post, we try to chalk out a general path to become a golf coach. The true talent of a coach lies in understanding the strengths and weaknesses of the students and helping them realize these.​ The innate quality of being able to ‘mentor’ should be present in you to enable a complete knowledge transfer. Patience is the key. As you learn golf, with good observation skills you start learning the art of teaching too. A great golf coach can teach you much about golf and golf coaching.

Hopefully, we will help you realize this hidden potential of yours!.

What Will You Need To Become A Golf Instructor?

Patience

Don’t get us wrong, patience is not something you suddenly sprout. But the process of learning and practising golf to become a golf coach inculcates patience. You need patience to observe the intricacies of the game. You need patience to understand the pitfalls of your students’ gameplay. You need patience to explain the techniques and corrective actions to them.

Fortunately, as you realize the beauty of the game, you are most likely to build this patience. If not, you might end up de-motivating the golfers.​

Enthusiasm

Golf coaching is an art of inspiring the golfers to push the boundaries. The more enthusiastic you are about the game, the more the spirit seeps into your pupils. Motivation is the key when the players’ performance seems to be plateauing. Besides, enthused students tend to experiment and take greater risks in their field. They tend to be more confident once they step out of the instructor’s purview.

Golf Kit

If you want to teach, you need to learn first. You need everything a golfer needs to learn and more: golf inside out. Golf clubs, golf memberships, other golf gear etc. will be required. It would be optimum if you have a good golf coach in the early years of practice. How he/she instructs you will positively affect your coaching methods too.

Networking Skills

Being a golf instructor, you will have to approach prospective clients or great golfers to understand their gameplay. A pleasant personality and good networking skills help you until you are famous enough that people seek you out.

Golf Instructor Certification

People like seeing official proof that you know what you are teaching. Many organizations offer golf coach certifications that look decisive on your resume. They also train you before the certification which helps you understand the game better. Golf certification is a sure-shot way of drawing the attention of student golfers.

Internet Connection

Literally all the information you need about instructing and learning golf is available online. Apart from our own site, we have covered the best golf websites here. Each website has resources of different kind. They explain the quirks of genius golfers. Sites like thehackersparadise.com give you insights into the shaft technology and swing mechanics

Step by step instructions

Here’s how a successful journey to becoming a golf instructor roughly looks like:

1. Find a Coach

Impressive teaching finds its roots in solid learning. A good golf coach will instill curiosity and confidence in your moves. Watching them analyze your game strategy and swing will help you learn the art as well. Good teachers always inspire their students to become better teachers too. Finding a great golf instructor is easy in the age of interweb:

2. Learn the game

If you are aiming to be a golf instructor, work harder than someone aiming to be a pro golf player. Golf coaches need to fathom their game and the gameplay of other people. So start practising golf vigorously. Study your own swing and the swing of the golf instructor. Don’t just blindly follow your coach. Understand the mechanics behind his instructions.

3. Analyze the game

Physics governs all aspects of golf unlike with Diego Maradona in football. To become a golf instructor, you need a good grip on the physics of the swing and the shot. Concepts like swing weight, shaft rotation, the center of gravity, the moment of inertia will be revisited. And this time on, they will be fun to learn because of their practical manifestation.

4. Observe others’ training

Watching how other golfers are being trained early on in your career helps you be a better golf coach. You learn the game and you learn the teaching methodologies. Observing your own trainer will reap benefits when you are training others. Conflict resolution and ways to completely transfer your ideas to the golfer will help.

5. Get a job on a golf establishment

A part-time job or internship at a golf facility: be it a golf course, a pro shop, an equipment shop or an apprentice to a golf coach will enrich your golf database. It also helps you land certifications later. Being around the golf course leads you into many realizations that no amount of YouTube videos can bring.

6. Rulebook

An important aspect that’s often left out of the guides to becoming a golf instructor is knowing the USGA rulebook verbatim. We take many freedoms while practising golf like carrying 15 clubs, wearing shorts etc.. Golf associations like PGA are notorious for sticking to weird rules that can cost you a major championship. Professional golfers are also subjected to TV viewers’ scrutiny as demonstrated by Lexi Thompson’s trial by a TV viewer.

7. Play in tournaments

No golfer pupil will take you seriously unless you have tournament experience under the belt. To gain their respect, they must believe that you have undergone the rigors of playing golf in public glare. That you have felt the same kind of pressure to make the most of your next shot. That you have felt the game slipping out of your hands in front of 1000s of people. So..

8. Certification/Qualification

To legitimize your golf coach career, as certification or golf instructor qualification will go a long way. Usually, these certifications involve some training and multiple levels of proficiency:

9. Start coaching

10. Own golf coaching center

In cahoots with the local golf courses or other facilities, you can start your own golf training school. This way, clients will seek you out rather than the other way round. The step is risky but rewarding. You get to manage your own schedule and regulate your student intake.

11. Professional Golf Coach

Even Tiger Woods has his own coach. Some of the professional golf coaches are more famous than other pro golfers. Take Hank Haney for example.

Professional golfers often pick their coaches from the PGA-certified pool. Professional golfers are capable of analyzing and improving their own game. They go to a coach looking for motivation, comforting and some secret of success they don’t already have. Sometimes another person’s perspective is all you need to get better at your game. Hence the high demand for professional golf instructors to high-profile players.

Pro Tip:

Here’s something that makes a great golf coach gain the edge:

Conclusion

Passing on knowledge can redeem you in many ways. No matter how much the job pays, coaching is actually a selfless service. Golf coaches have the ability to shape the golfer’s personality and temperament on the course. 50% of golf is played in the mind, so an instructor’s contribution to the golfer’s game is valuable. Being a golf coach is a vocation of sorts. You need to have the right chemistry with the players. You need to get into their minds and understand the game from their point of view.

Being a golf coach at any level requires you to completely know the game. Based on the level of players you want to instruct, you will have to build your qualifications and experience. You need to be proactive in your search for prospective clients. In this post, we described all these steps and the parties to approach. For more elaborate information, you can post your queries in the comment section. If you found it helpful share the article with fellow golfers and golf coaches-to-be.